“Bitcoin,” the world’s first and most popular cryptocurrency has been expanding rapidly worldwide, becoming a vital part of the economy. “I think [cryptocurrency] had a pretty big growth recently with a little bit of a fall off,” senior Nikhil Vattathara said.

Artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are two things that will shape the future and your daily life. With great hits like “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer” and today’s stock market, you can see that our world is going to change very soon, but not always for the better.

AI and Business

Today, AI is beginning to be implemented everywhere you go. According to the American Hospital Association and the American Public University, it is clear that AI is beginning to show up everywhere, like in hospitals and retail stores. AI has also made learning more efficient, according to Powerschool.

“I think it makes certain tasks easier so that you can spend more time on critical thinking aspects,” senior and vice president of the Commas Club, Nikhil Vattathara said. “I worked on this internship over the summer and there was [a] section where you needed to match codes to [a] massive spreadsheet, and instead of trying to code something myself. I just plugged it into AI and it did the whole thing for me.”

With many new machines being powered by AI, around a fifth of workers in the United States fear that they could be affected or possibly replaced by AI. There is also an oncoming generation of new workers who could be affected by jobs that are taken by robots and machinery, rather than human beings.

“I think the employment rate will start to go down for certain jobs, whereas for other jobs it will stay around the same or maybe even increase. For CS, currently the job market is crashing [due to AI] but I think there will be jobs developing around AI,” Vattathara said. “I think over time AI will get so advanced where we won’t need as [many jobs], so I think the overall employment rate will go down.”

AI can help increase your paycheck, and with the introduction of services like chat bots who will help you when you have an issue, the demand for actual human support is reduced, according to the International Monetary Fund. If you have a well-paying job, you are likely to see an increase in pay, but not much can be said about the people who don’t have as high of a salary. The problem with jobs that require low skill and don’t pay much is that they can easily be mimicked with the use of AI.

“With AI, the need for more manpower and factories will be decreased and will instead transition into AI,” freshman and active member of the Commas Club, Anish Kulkarni said.

Even though fewer job opportunities can happen, AI can still help with jobs in a positive way. Overall workload will be reduced which creates room for better pay and might provide easier tasks while at work. Alongside this, money management within businesses will be easier with the combined involvement of AI and cryptocurrency, providing safer transactions and protections against fraud.

“I feel like it should be used in limited resources; too much is bad but it’s also helpful,” Kulkarni said.

The Future of Cryptocurrency

According to the Pew Research Center, paying with cash is becoming a lesser used payment method due to online services, like cryptocurrency, being used instead. With people having the ability to use apps like “Cashapp,” “Bitcoin” and “Coinbase,” they are able to pay with minimal effort, and avoid counting dollars.

“I think a lot of it has [been replaced]. I am a cash person, and I tend to use cash a lot,” Vattathara said. “Most of my friends have an ApplePay account or something where they just plug that in or use credit cards or other [things] like Venmo. I think it’s cool because having your phone [is useful] in case you forget cash.”

Overall, the future of AI and cryptocurrency is still volatile, as it is only beginning to be implemented on a day-to-day basis. We don’t have to worry about being completely replaced by AI, as there are many things that can only be accomplished by humans.

“I do theater, and I think art is one thing that should never be replaced by anything,”  Vattathara said. “I think it’s just humans and that’s so important. It’s definitely something that worries me, but we will see how it goes.”